#[ FC: Face of a techie ]

[warsinmyhead]

Briggs Tag Dump

[radicalrascals]

The Tinkerer

Original Character | FC: Lázaro Ramos

NAME: Murilo Madrigal

AGE: in his 40s

SPECIES: human

PROFESSION: media technician

Short Bio

Murilo has always been fascinated with media and knew he'd wanted to play a part in the industry. Being a performer was out of the question. While he does have decent musical talent, Murilo hates being the centre of attention. He rather prefers to help others shine and when he discovered his knack for technology, he knew instantly how to achieve that. Murilo has worked many odd jobs from barista to courier in order to finance his dream, until he eventually got into working for a big television studio. Though eventually he decided to go freelance, now helping aspiring students realise their first short movie, documentations, podcasts and the one or other mostly uneventful ghost hunt.

Relationships

Diogo Rosa Madrigal > [Tag] | [Ship]

Grace Rosa Madrigal > [Tag]

Playlist

Libre by Emicida feat. Iheyi from AmarElo (2019)

Malandramente by DENNIS feat. MC Nandinho & Nego Bam from Malandramente (2016)

Vermelho by Gloria Groove from Lady Leste (2022)

Detailed Profile

FULL NAME: Rui Murilo dos Santos Madrigal

KNOWN AS: Murilo Madrigal

NICKNAMES: Milo, Murilinho

~~~~~~~~~~~~

SPECIES: human

RESIDENCE: wherever his husband teaches at university; he'd follow him everywhere

PROFESSION: media technician

~~~~~~~~~~~~

AGE: in his 40s

DATE OF BIRTH: November 5

PLACE OF BIRTH: Feira de Santana, Brazil

NATIONALITY: Brazilian

~~~~~~~~~~~~

PARENTS: Roberta Eliseba Falcão Mendes dos Santos & Carlos Atanasio Oliveira dos Santos

SIBLINGS: Sara Marília do Nascimento (younger sister)

HUSBAND: Diogo Rosa Madrigal

~~~~~~~~~~~~

FACE CLAIM: Lázaro Ramos

HEIGHT: 5ft 10 (1.8m)

NOTABLE FEATURES: tba

STYLE: tba

~~~~~~~~~~~~

LANGUAGES: Portuguese (native), English (fluent)

SPEECH MANNERISM: tba

STRENGTHS: Murilo is a techie who loves to tinker and fix things. He's not bad with a camera either and has decent musical talent.

WEAKNESSES: Murilo has incredibly bad eye sight and usually wears contact lenses and sometimes glasses to give his eyes a break.

INTERESTS: Technology of all kind, especially media recording and processing. Tinkering and fixing things.

VICES: loves food, don't let him near a video game or he'll forget everything around him for hours

~~~~~~~~~~~~

NSFW

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: homoromantic

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: homosexual

PREFERENCE: dom | switch | sub

ROLE: top | vers | bottom

[trash0saurus]

The Trash Pile of OCs!

I am going to try to put all my current OC info in one giant post for easy reference so 1000 apologies if it goes haywire.

listed are:

Jana Lidečko

Kentaro (Kenta) Lachlan MacDonnell

Seamus MacDonnell

Tijs Johannes

Lisette Genevieve Durocher

Sofie Grace Dubois

note: the stories these characters are in take place in the mid- to late-2000s, so their ages will be according to their stories, not present day! ^^

Jana Magdalena Lidečko (Jana)

Birthday – February 23, 1980 (Pisces)

Hair: red/golden brown – long, sometimes wears bangs

Eyes: blue

Is in her mid-20’s

Grew up in a suburb of Prague, Czechia - raised by her mother and grandmother – never really knew her father so doesn’t know anything about him.

The brainy and nerdy type, but has an extremely silly side as well.

Plays the cello, although doesn’t play that much anymore. She can also play the piano and isn’t a bad singer – she’s just extremely shy about it.

Huge Monty Python fan.

Clothing preferences: well-worn jeans, baggy or oversized shirts, one of Kenta’s old concert t-shirts, converse or doc martens.

Face Claim: Alexandra Porfirova

Kentaro Lachlan MacDonnell (Kenta)

Birthday – May 28, 1980 (Gemini)

Hair: red/auburn

Eyes: brown

About the same age as Jana

Is a ghoul (rinkaku), of Scottish and Japanese heritage.

His mother is Japanese, his father is Scottish.

Is just about as nerdy and goofy as Jana is. (Is also a huge fan of Monty Python.)

Has a degree in computer science as well as certification in a few programming languages.

Clothing preferences: Jeans or cargo pants/shorts, t-shirts, flannels, anything he can run around in and not care about getting torn or dirty.

Face Claim: Declan O’Connor Ashton Irwin

Seamus MacDonnell

Kenta’s father

b. 1955

Scottish.

Is a ghoul (bikaku)

Red hair, blue eyes.

Sometimes grows his hair long and/or wears a beard. Ginger, blue eyes.

Stubborn, strong, fierce when he needs to be. Also kindhearted, witty, jovial.

FC: Toby Stephens

Tijs Johannes

Son of Tycho Johannes, friend/relative of Tsukiyama Mirumo

Of Dutch heritage.

In his early-mid 20’s.

Fun-loving, irreverent, yet resourceful and very intelligent.

Is a huge techie – works for Tsukiyama Group as a computer tech and anything related.

Very good friend and Kenta and Jana’s

Face claim: Toby Regbo

Lisette Genevieve Durocher

Raised in Plaquemine, Iberville Parish, LA.

Birthday: February 4, 1985 (Aquarius)

Red hair, green-gray eyes, fair-skinned.

personality traits – very unorganized, messy, scattered. Comes across as too naïve or trusting sometimes – is actually pretty intuitive though.

Grew up poor in a close-knit family, has 3 older brothers and a younger sister.

Has a cat, or will eventually have one.

Is a musician (violinist) Studied at Louisiana State, transferred to Shepherd School of Music at Rice University

Clothing preferences: likes flowy long skirts, floral prints, pastels or colors that remind her of the forest or a garden.

FC: Samantha Cormier

Sofie Grace Dubois

Birthday: September 9, 1992 (Virgo)

Hair: dark brown, 4b/4a curl

Eyes: dark brown

Her father is a French Diplomat, her mother is the daughter of a wealthy Nigerian businessman and his wife.

Her parents expect her to become a doctor, lawyer, something “prestigious” or marry one… She actually wants to be either an elementary school teacher, or a children’s book author, or own a flower shop – or maybe all three (she can’t decide, really)

Smart, outgoing and friendly

Clothing preferences: loves the colors red, pink, and yellow. Enjoys experimenting with mixing and matching patterns and textures. Comfortable in a flowy dress or in jeans and a t-shirt – it doesn’t matter to her.

Face claim: Poppy Okotcha

[robot-unicorn-attack]

☽ FLOWER, 25

“ I said that I am a fairy and they prefer to dance and fly as a butterfly but they made me talk and walk, and I hate walking and talking. ” —Sasha Pivovarova ( like something out of the RISE script for “Flower” ) 

Real Name: AURA PHILYRA  Agency: 𝑅 𝐼 𝒮 𝐸 (Sky World) FC: Ming Xi Unicorn Name: PAGEANT PRINCESS Place of Birth: Moon City    

Appearance: While Aura has not permanently altered her looks in any way, “Flower”’s image can fluctuate because of the “holo-veil” the RISE team insists she wear over her face in public, and of course, while racing. It’s essentially an undetectable face-mask that plays off of and digitally alters Aura’s features to give her an exaggerated doll face- ranging from the intentionally synthetic-looking (ex. large doll-ish eyes), complete glitter/tattooed face or even a face-scramble that confuses camera lenses to keep people from taking images of Aura without the agency’s authorisation while she’s out and about. Her naked face is hardly ever seen.

Wardrobe: Whatever fits within what the RISE image consultants call “Pixie-bot” which verges on creepy, fake-y “living doll” territory but with a fantasy element given her pretty steed is a Pegasus model. They were considering “Loli-bot” for Aura early on- because of her age they were sure she could pull it off. Aura would have stomached the aesthetic, too, just to get paid. Thankfully, however, the “Pixie-bot” idea was floated due to Pageant Princess’ particular winged model. 

[She’s definitely not against the pretty clothes and costumes- it’s the personality they want to go along with it that she dislikes.]

Places most likely to be found: Aura is either at the RISE training track with Pageant (practising or watching someone practise), asleep (snoring) in her teeny RISE apartment (the more important, the bigger the apartment- if that tells you anything), or since she’s promoting herself as Flower, RISE has her going out to club events on Unicorn City most nights.. and management says she isn’t allowed to drink anymore given her last indelicate drinking debacle. 

People mostly likely to be with: On the training track, she’s most likely to be with RISE’s training team (mostly techies who might as well be speaking a whole other language to her when they go on about Pageant’s internal mechanics), but she doesn’t really care for them. She also sees her teammates- Supernova and Sunbeam- there a lot, but.. they don’t really care for her. Otherwise, Aura’s out in the City’s nightlife with strangers and the occasional RISE babysitter dragging her around by the arm to make sure she sees and talks to everyone she should be (and avoids everyone she should be). She really can’t even make a friend that way, much less a love connection, so.. Aura’s pretty much a loner, but not by choice. 

Strongest character trait: of Flower: Sweet / of Aura: Obstinate 

Public Image: Aura plays The Long-Legged Bimbo to Supernova’s polished Heroine and Sunbeam’s beloved Sky-Daughter personas. [And- those really creepy “robot” ig models that are really just like cgi ? That’s the vibe- that level of weird perfection, and just as superficial and ditz-y. If you’re going to “Twilight” a racer- might as well go all the way with it.] Her “role” among her RISE companions makes her feel like a complete joke, but she’s determined to be taken seriously by making herself into a winner. 

Racing Strengths: Truthfully, there aren’t many by way of skill- just determination (and many years of tears of frustration). Dressage is a forte, with a big lean on Pageant who’s perfectly suited to the required elegance. 

Racing Weaknesses: All of it. Everything. Slow, but.. still coming for you. 

Personality: In reality, Aura is much more strong-willed and uses biting sarcasm with abandon. “Flower”, however, is the giggly, disarming costume that Aura dons publicly. Flower is confused easily, but fun-loving and excited to be where she is at any given time. She says “Oh !” in dreamy realisation a lot and smiles prettily even when she loses. But Aura, in private, feels a bit deflated, tired- maybe a little ashamed at what she has to do in order to stay relevant in the racing industry. Lately, she’s felt awfully lonely- because no one around her really knows her- but she tries to let it be enough that darling (though dumb) “Flower” is never alone and always surrounded by fans and icons. 

Biography: 

The eldest of five children, Aura grew up in the overcrowded rookeries of a little-known moon- whenever she talks about where she’s from, no one ever seems to know what or where "Moon City” is. So, to avoid long-winded (and perhaps embarrassing) explanations, she generally tells anyone who asks that she’s originally from Ice World. 

Aura was “scouted” by a RISE recruiter at the age of sixteen while on a trip to Unicorn City with friends to catch a race- the first she had ever seen ! Apparently, the recruiter liked her looks, but that was just about all the “talent” she had to give at the time as she had never even touched a mechanical horse, let alone ridden one- forget raced ! But, desperate to leave the slums of Moon City behind her for good, Aura quickly signed with RISE and was almost immediately thrown into the deep-end with her horse- Pageant Princess- only to embarrass herself in her first televised race by dropping in dead-last. Aura hadn’t expected to win or anything, yet it was still disappointing, and her management decided to set her aside for a few seasons- to train her, fix her image, cultivate a fan-base for her through a commercial campaign for uv beauty products, and within the last year, little promos that depict her as living in a little virtual fairy cottage on Sky World that she only leaves to dominate the track with the winged Pageant Princess and to attend various high-society Unicorn City bacchanals brimming with beautiful, glowing people. So far, it’s been a successful campaign and her fan-base is rapidly growing. RISE fully expects Aura to be ready to race in this new season- and more than just compete, but actually win. And, really, that’s all Aura wants- to win and cement herself as a serious racer among her fellows...and make the big money to share with her family back home on Moon City.

Though the inability to live as her normal self has taken a toll on Aura over the past years, she has at least been able to comfort herself with the knowledge that she is helping her family- that she is making them proud by working herself to exhaustion to become better- the best ! She means to win this season, no matter what it takes. 

Relationships:

Snow - Racer crush, actual crush. A much-needed ally on the horizon. Aura knows of Snow (who doesn’t ?), and has bumped into her at glamour events from time to time. They’ve only raced together once- years ago in Aura’s very first race (when she was a baby ((16)) !)- and naturally, Snow beat Aura...thoroughly. But that was to be expected. Aura’s followed Snow closely since Snow’s return to racing and looks forward to their next head-to-head.

Sky - 

Ice -

Supernova - RISE “Teammate”. Aura idolises Supernova and has for years, but she worries (and would be so mortified to know) that her hero really thinks of her as a fool who’s only good for getting sad drunk (once !) at company promotional events...where Aura may have vomited in front of her... Aura hopes that winning more races will convince Supernova that she is the real deal ! (Her ultimate dream would be to have Supernova mentor her !)  

Sunbeam - RISE “Teammate”. Okay, so Aura’s a little jealous of her because she’s the pride and joy of RISE and she seems to have the respect of Supernova ! And she’s pretty and talented ( unmatched technique~ ) and allowed to have her own personality- it’s too much for Aura to stomach sometimes. She really likes to avoid Sunbeam socially if possible.

Flame -

Nyx - **danger by taemin plays** Sol and “Flower” have met before, while Flower was relevant for a second as a teenager ( - they danced at a club the night before she finished dead-last in her first race ), but it’s been a while since their paths have crossed- though Aura is well-aware of Nyx’ success. Now that Flower’s back in the game, they’re sure to see each other more and more.  

Widowmaker - Aura is sensitive to ~vibes~, and she knows there’s something with Eleni. “Just look at the way she looks at me...” And, you know what, consider Aura intimidated. But even though there is some miscommunication between the two of them (most of which Aura is not aware of), Aura isn’t confused about the sort of racer Widow is- and she knows Eleni’s not to be approached lightly...but also, like- “What did I do~ to catch that death stare ?” It does bother her.

Playlist: 

sit still, look pretty by daya

favriel by grimes

alone by halsey

medieval warfare by grimes

i am the best by 2ne1

heavy metal and reflective by azealia banks

nightmare by halsey 

**sweet dreams (are made of this) by emily browning 

nightmusic by grimes, ft. majical cloudz

**from the ‘sucker punch’ soundtrack

Headcanons:

Owns Snow/S.C. merch- if Snow ever discovers the holo keychain, Aura will literally die of embarrassment. #aurivana 

Her salary is meager- but that’s because she earns almost solely for RISE at the moment with promos and brand deals. Everything she owns- the high-end couture and jewellry and even the holo-veil- aren’t really hers- they’re on loan from RISE. And whatever coin she does manage to earn goes straight to her family on Moon City, so.. she’s almost always skint. 

Aura’s RISE apartment is.. like a mouse’s hole, spatially. The bed is lofted above the kitchen area, and the bathroom is the only room with a door. A glass door- but it’s still a door. But the lighting is always an ambient, calming violet-to-indigo that reminds her of home. 

If she were a vine she would be the one with the child staring down the barrel of a squirt gun and he just says “shoot me”.

Aura’s RISE handlers- it’s usually a big guy named J.J. who is really just a strong-arm type (which confuses Aura- like, do they think she needs a bodyguard or are they afraid that she might run away if left unsupervised ? It’s unclear to her.)- do not let her drink at parties anymore. Not only has she nearly vomited on an industry icon (and personal idol), but she’s also broken character (a big no-no) to tell off the son of some CEO that apparently wanted to work with RISE on a future endeavour (oops). 

Yeah. She’s almost been fired a couple of times, but at this point, RISE has sunk so much money into Aura that, actually, the only fiscally smart thing to do is keep her around and train her up. 

*Daydreams about Marivana*  #secretsecrets

[jokressley]

JOSIAH KRESSLEY ( ROSS LYNCH / HE/HIM ) - is a SIXTEEN year old JUNIOR student at Northlake High. They sit with the WANNABEES at lunch and are commonly known around school as the CRESTFALLEN, because they’re COMPASSIONATE and INCISIVE, but also QUIXOTIC and VOLATILE.

“ah fuck, i can’t believe you’ve done this”

for those of you who don’t know me... hi! i’m mark, i’m 22. est, he/him. huge theatre nerd, gryffindor, taurus. likes long walks on the beach, etc. i was here and left bc life got hectic but i’m back!!!! i couldn’t stay away from my functional/disaster gay so here i am

anyway here’s josiah! new fc, same gay.  here’s a rlly mediocre about page (bio to come). and here’s a pinterest board

uh idk here’s his Three Things™ from the app ig:

1) josiah’s sexuality is one of northlake’s worst-kept secrets. while he’s never officially come out (he doesn’t see the point, it shouldn’t be a big deal), nearly everyone knows that he’s gay. he’s comfortable enough with who he is, but he doesn’t feel the desire to be “the gay kid” or anything like that. the bullying and teasing has subsided ever since ella disappeared, but you’re still not going to catch him pulling any stunts at prom like you see in the movies.

2) he has tried his hardest to be a rock and anchor for his parents and the rest of his family and everybody at school, but it’s getting harder and harder the longer this all goes on. jo’s getting desperate for answers, and is starting to act more reckless as a result.

3) he has a tattoo of the deathly hallows on his wrist because he’s in love with harry potter. he almost got ella’s name over his heart at the end of summer, but backed out at the last second because it felt too final. other attributes: he has a scar on the side of his face from falling out of a tree when he was eight.

uh he’s mostly the same but i am gonna update some stuff so i’ve kinda just copied and pasted and tacked on from the old intro!!! 

so yeah he’s ella’s younger brother. just under a year apart, though they were often mistaken for twins growing up

she’s a bigger and bolder personality where as he’s a tad chiller (sometimes).

with everything he does he’s still fairly popular, as was she; but he’s not like... cool, per se. you know the type. 

jo’s a wannabee and it’s ?? really not like he has any desire to climb to the top. he’s just always been a friendly guy and kind of naturally landed here

he’s in mostly honors classes, has spent time in a lot of clubs, so he knows a lot of people

he kinda spent a lot of time in ella’s shadow so once he got to high school he really decided to forge his own path

currently: stu gov (historian), school paper (writer), drama club (techie), lgbt club

formerly: baseball, soccer, yearbook, academic decathlon, events committee 

spent a lot of freshman year trying out different activities & had intentions to follow thru on more but then ella disappeared and things got complicated 

student gov and the school paper allow him to be rlly involved and be nosy, two of his favorite things

ella’s more inclined to the spotlight but jo couldn’t resist when she texted him and said they needed bodies backstage so now he’s a regular techie

anyway speaking of ella . . . . like his skeleton says, he hasn’t taken it well and is SUPER not thrilled to be dealing with their parents by himself 

he doesn’t believe that she’s dead, or that she ran away, or any of the other 83483 rumors that have cropped up in the past year and will get pretty defensive if he hears anyone talking about it 

as far as he’s concerned, she’s missing and she’s alive …somewhere

hates that people seem to forget about any of the previous victims every time a new one happens 

they’re all important, obviously, but like … ella, mostly

overall he’s kind of a mess but he’s handling it fairly well. a+ compartmentalizing!!!

listen he loves his parents and they’re great and he understands why they’re overbearing but holy shit is it exhausting being around them anymore 

will look for any excuse to get out of the house because meals are incredibly tense and awkward as they have been for a year 

he’s gay (obviously) and he wants to tell them but he doesn’t want to put more on their plates and honestly they probably already know so why bother? 

as stated above he’s gotten more reckless and where he would only occasionally drink when the occasion arose?? now you can catch him partying most weekends, gets high sometimes. 

not crazy but like … crazy by kressley standards. 

sometimes he does it to numb, sometimes he does it to allow himself to have some fun in this fucked up world they’re living in 

uh there’s definitely more that i’m forgetting in the moment! 

wanted connections: 

a current boy toy (whether they’re dating or just hooking up idc)

a past fling (again, their status tbd)

best friend (ella was/is his person but this would be his #2) 

former friends (maybe something happened or they’ve just grown apart) 

club/activity pals

fellow wannabees duh 

enemies or frenemies like... he’s a lot sometimes, i’m sure he can rub people the wrong way

[tothewaterhq]

ACCEPTED // NOVEMBER “EMBER” LOWELL

district three → tribute → tom holland fc (he/him)

strengths: charismatic, intelligent, quick-thinking weaknesses: unassertive, flaky, bad under pressure weapon of choice: traps and medicine token: a data chip necklace from his mother

did they volunteer? if so, why?: the names of the original tribute did not even register in ember’s brain before his hand went up to volunteer. volunteering had been an idea that had been stirring in his brain for a while, so it was practically a reflex at that point. he volunteered to have an opportunity to show that he was capable of more than his parents thought he could be.

bio (at least two paragraphs):

When November Christopher Lowell was born, it was a dark December night, there was snow covering the ground, and people waiting with cameras right outside of the hospital room, wanting to be the first to get a glimpse at the baby boy. From the moment he was introduced into the world, his life was crowded with expectations. His parents, two famous programmers who had created some of the programs vital to the gamemakers, had their own hopes for their son. They wanted him to be intelligent, charismatic, successful, to follow in their footsteps, yet the people standing outside the door, a quiet chatter among them, had their own expectations. They wanted him to be a media darling, interesting enough for them to report on, yet well-behaved enough for them to idolize. It was this contradiction that characterized November’s life from the moment the family got home from the hospital.

Known as Ember, the boy grew up in the spotlight. Everything from a good grade on a spelling test to a middle school chorus concert was made into a big deal, so much so that by the time he turned fourteen, he was pulled out of school and home schooled by a tutor hired by his parents. If he wasn’t at home or studying, he was at work with his father or studying or doing practice problems in the family kitchen, his life seeming to revolve around becoming the next successful techie in a line of geniuses while he craved for something different, something more. He loved science and math, but he despised the pressure he was put under. No matter how hard he practiced, how fast he could solve a differential equation, his dad always pushed him further, convinced his son was holding out on him. The words quickly shifted from encouraging to cruel as time went on, forcing Ember to learn how to tune out the negative words of some around him and how to lie through his teeth in interviews about his family.

However, that changed when he watched Pixel win. Seeing such a young girl emerge victorious from the arena, someone from his home who was clever and resourceful, made him feel like he could do the same. So when the time came for the 78th reaping, Ember’s hand shot up, ready to become something he chose to be.

His parents are mortified, they feel as if him going into the arena is a death wish, but he feels like he is capable of so much more. He’s smart, ready to take on a challenge, and convinced that he can make it out alive. And even if he doesn’t, isn’t that better than being something he never chose to be in the first place?

On the surface, Ember is charming, charismatic, easy to get along with. To everyone who meets him, he seems incredibly content with his life, yet ambitious, a contradiction that his mother and father both convinced the world they also mastered before him. He loves to meet new people and go adventuring, constantly talking about his various travels and trips. He seems as if he was born to be a star. However, if one takes a step deeper, they can see that is not truly the case. While he may be an extrovert, Ember craves freedom more than he craves fame. He has this magnetic quality about him and this ability to make people feel special, something that is evident in both his face to face interactions in secret and his interviews in public, yet he is scared, confused, and unsure of what his next move will be.

PLAYED BY // OPHELIA 

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Stealing Life with the Big Bad Retail King — One-third of All Buying Transactions  Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed. — Iago, Shakespeare’s Othello It’s more than disconcerting to hear the blathering now, September 2018, about Jeff Bezos. About Amazon dot com as richest company ever. To hear the fawning love of the rich guy, now, when we were predicting a slave master killing publishing, killing independence; news reports and tribute after tribute for this full-fledged Midas of tax cheating, our homegrown monopolist of the highest order, anti-American who gives a shit about main street America, a misanthropic fake news purveyor, a full-bore felonious PT Barnum and smoke and mirrors double shuffle guy who thinks of his tens upon tens of thousands of warehouse workers as spindles, interchangeable parts, and to hell with their precarity, their one nose-bleed from homelessness. This is a time of same sides of the coin of the realm: the conservative and the liberal, the War-Mongering Democratic Party drooling at the McCain fiasco and the Sycophantic Zio-Christo Republicans confused about who is going to own what while scampering away like rats into the alleys as the headlights of their narcissist-in-chief blowtorches the world. The most important characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are grandiosity, seeking excessive admiration, and a lack of empathy. These identifying features can result in a negative impact on an individual’s interpersonal affairs and life general. In most cases, on the exterior, these patients act with an air of right and control, dismissing others, and frequently showcasing condescending or denigrating attitudes. Nevertheless, internally, these patients battle with strong feelings of low self esteem issues and inadequacy. Even though the typical NPD patient may achieve great achievements, ultimately their functioning in society can be affected as these characteristics interfere with both personal and professional relationships. A large part of this is as result of the NPD patient being incapable of receiving disapproval or rebuff of any kind, in addition to the fact that the NPD patient typically exhibits lack of empathy and overall disrespect for others.** ** Note that NPD runs through the DNA of these ministers like Jimmy Swaggart or Billy-Franklin Graham, through the family RNA of so-called royalty of the world, in the brain chemistry of the likes of a Henry Kissinger or Adolph Hitler, in the hypothalamus of fruit-salad bedecked generals and in the frontal cortex of all great and not-so-great thespians, from politicos to actors. Moreover, this Bezos, our great Albuquerque-born plumbing showroom huckster peddling absolutely all the stuff we do not need piled up in his fulfillment centers, represents those two sides of the same coin: powerful, libertarian, ruthless and spirit-less, driven to conquer/distribute/hawk all the stuff in any sort of catalog that exists out there to fulfill the needs and mostly not so necessary junk of obsolescence and consumer addiction. A cold anti-philanthropy multi-billionaire, whose net worth of $160.7 billion is headline news now as the TV clowns present the Top Five, Top Ten/Twenty diligently, Bezos is the top of the dung heap according to another rag with all the news unfit (for humanity) to print . . . . . . Who is the richest person in the world? While Forbes updates their list of the world’s billionaires in real time as markets fluctuate, the magazine also releases a more static list each year. The total net worth of these money-makers when the 2018 list was released in March was $7.67 trillion. Click through to see 2018’s top 20 richest billionaires on the planet. With his company — which epitomizes the heights of death star techie logic, next gen robotics, drones, massive crisscrossing of products through a digital satellite-fed network of Prime Time orders — Bezos has continually kicked out with the help of Seattle PD we protesters with one share of his shit stock at shareholder meetings protesting his sadism around refusing to air condition fulfillment centers while instead putting rent-an-ambulances outside the doors! Oh, this economic disruptor of small and large businesses, all part of that gift of unfettered homicidal capitalism a la retail conglomeration, is reviled, hated, but will be the big section in those econ books from many years to come. Bernie Sanders wants a special tax on this white shark-eyed Jeff Bezos? Funny follies of the political kind. Imagine, justifying all the tax evasion and felonies of the billionaires and millionaires and banks and hedge funders and the rest of the elites — that’s the cool truth of our state of misrepresentation in Washington. Never political cries of “tax them all for their externalities — all the damage capital and capitalists have done to the world.”  Major and minor municipalities and entire states fall over themselves with money dripping tongues out of their mouths while courting this company with so many freebies in the billions to get another load of office buildings or fulfillment centers or even another headquarters/campus or pod of fulfillment centers. At any cost. Walmartization of the world, or was it McDonaldization first, or Fordization, but now Amazonization of the culture outstrips anything up to this point in this country’s lunacy. You can get anything anytime anywhere for anyone from this five and dime on steroids. Or, The Details About the CIA’s Deal With Amazon: A $600 million computing cloud built by an outside company is a “radical departure” for the risk-averse intelligence community Just in Time Employment, 11th Hour appointments, Permanent Temp, a Precarity defined as the New Almost Slavery Gig gigs — Coulda Been HuffPost Slave Yet, on Democracy Now, again, in September 2018, we are led to believe we now have to be aghast about those fulfillment centers and those Americans being worked to the bone, worked down to the shredded screws in their hip replacement hardware, worked to confusion and exhaustion and then discarded for not working hard enough for this Master Blaster of the Retail Monopoly. Juan Gonzalez of DN tells us about these “cutting edge” stories from his Rutgers University Department of Journalism and Media Studies students working on this “breaking news,” while Juan laughs and smirks at the reality of “us” (not me) ordering everything on Amazon. Here, the DN reports: As Amazon Hits $1 Trillion in Value, Its Warehouse Workers Denounce “Slavery” Conditions Exposed: Undercover Reporter at Amazon Warehouse Found Abusive Conditions & No Bathroom Breaks Ahh, but we over at DV have been printing these stories for more than six years: * Punditry of Shit-Hole Thinking  * On-line Dildo Salesman Bezos is the News Fit to Print * Amazon.com Don’t Need No Stinking Climate Change Badge, No Stinking Corporate Transparency Crap * Books, Bountiful Ethics, Brave Buyers Nichole Gracely / May 21st, 2012 Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley (LV) is a distribution hub, and many fellow Amazon associates and Integrity Staffing Solutions temps had previously worked in other local warehouses. I have and I can say that they’re typically rough workplaces. At first glance, Amazon’s LV fulfillment center appears benign. Primary red, yellow, green and blue splashes of color brighten the place, and motivational posters and friendly educational signs that feature cute characters provide guidance. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of workers populate the warehouse at once, diligently taking direction from hand-held scanners or computers, and the place is enormous so it doesn’t appear cramped. Seriously, the place could house a small city. Physical strength is not a necessary qualification to perform any of their warehouse job functions, and management is ostensibly concerned with worker safety. Just about anyone could staff Amazon’s FC, especially since it only takes a couple of hours to train workers to perform any specific job function. It’s safe to say that anyone laboring in an Amazon FC has fallen into hard times, and many of my former coworkers’ resumes featured distinguished past titles, impressive demonstrations of manual skill and ability, and/or lofty educational attainment. Many never thought they’d wind up in a warehouse and so, yes, this was all foreign for many. Other workers who staffed other warehouses in the past didn’t know what to make of the place because there is something different about Amazon, something alien. “Chairman” Bezos once said that Amazon workers don’t need a union because we own the company. “Chairman” Bezos has zero tolerance for union activity and several Amazon unionization attempts were summarily squashed. After two years on the job an Amazon FC associate is entitled to eight shares of stock. If Amazon is trading at, say, $250 a share, that’s $2,000. Ownership? $250 per share is a generous projection. Seasoned investors are baffled by AMZN’s current overvaluation because of its unhealthy 188:1 (fluctuates, yet always unhealthy) price to earnings ratio, and they’re waiting for the bubble to burst. Nichole went on to write a piece in the Guardian: Amazon Seasonal Work  And the Guardian published another one, more than four years ago: Being homeless is better than working for Amazon Bread and Roses — 106 Years Ago, Back to Now: Strike Amazon, Strike US Correctional Institutions, Boycott I got this from a friend, Andy Piascik, a long-time activist and award-winning author whose most recent book is the novel In Motion. He can be reached at ###. In the end, in the face of the state militia, U.S. Marines, Pinkerton infiltrators and hundreds of local police, the strikers prevailed. They achieved a settlement close to their original demands, including significant pay raises and time-and-a-quarter for overtime, which previously had been paid at the straight hourly rate. Workers in Lowell and New Bedford struck successfully a short while later, and mill owners throughout New England soon granted significant pay raises rather than risk repeats of Lawrence. When the trials of Ettor, Giovannitti and a third defendant commenced in the fall, workers in Lawrence’s mills pulled a work stoppage to show that a miscarriage of justice would not be tolerated. The three were subsequently acquitted. More than a century ago and it’s rabbit-holed history . . . and what do we fight for in this country now? We have fear of unions, we embrace the gig economy/outsourcing on Kratom (called near slavery by socio-economists), and the unimaginable bullshit and shit jobs have generated aimlessness, screen addiction, be mean to thy neighbor mentality, cold hearts and Homo Retailipithecus. Bullshit jobs, as Graeber states: A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble. But it’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. Shit jobs tend to be blue collar and pay by the hour, whereas bullshit jobs tend to be white collar and salaried. We have become a civilization based on work—not even “productive work” but work as an end and meaning in itself. What is Labor Day or May Day now in a world of Marvel comics and infantilization of every intercourse we have with every sort of humanity? Do we care about solidarity? Do we know how to build communities? Do we see neighbors and people in and on the streets as equals, people, us? What is the value of work when it is drudgery, dog-eat-dog, king of the hill and top of the dung heap relationships? We have to go beyond now this simpleton way of seeing the world from the bifurcated Groucho Marx eyeglasses. This is a great time of upheaval, splintering, hot house planet, Sixth Mass Extinction, a world of capital making more capital off of war, resource theft, thievery of other nations’ and cultures’ futures. Jobs, Who Doesn’t Choose to Collapse, Hothouse Planet, People As I continually teach young people to think, you are what you eat, what you do, what you think, what your read, what you say, what you believe, what you aspire to, what you hope for, what you do or not do to be one with humanity. If your life is one of toil, what is inside the heart, and what do you do with those beliefs and philosophies while slogging away? Are you a believer in exceptionalism, Zionist or Christian superiority? Is the white shade of skin the defining element in your life? Do you have passions that are your own, or are they manufactured, designed, and cajoled by the money changers and propagandists?  The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. This line was from a speech by Rose Schneiderman, Polish-born socialist and feminist and prominent labor union leaders in America. It’s a phrase embodying everything today we workers need to utilize as a galvanizing force upon our souls to break away from these people like Bezos and the entire master crafters of our pain, poverty and penury. When I say “our,” I mean the world’s collective pain in the form of billions of people, for whom Western Culture (sic) has set loose a wildfire of forced displacement, murder, resource extraction, war and disease of the mind and body. It was also a successful textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, during January–March 1912, which is pretty much universally referred to as the “Bread and Roses” strike. Pairing bread and roses not as counter-balances — fair wages and dignified conditions. Defining “the sometimes tedious struggles for marginal economic advances in the light of labor struggles as based on striving for dignity and respect,” as Robert J. S. Ross wrote in 2013. I imagine the Bezos types wanting every last penny from every last $2-a-day inhabitant on earth, and I imagine this fellow is as steely-hearted as any in an Upton Sinclair book — and note this first quote by Sinclair is for me about men and women working today, even though Sinclair was writing about a living livestock animal torn from life: One could not stand and watch very long without being philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog-squeal of the universe…. Each of them had an individuality of his own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart’s desire; each was full of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity. And trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while a black shadow hung over him, and a horrid Fate in his pathway. Now suddenly it had swooped upon him, and had seized him by the leg. Relentless, remorseless, all his protests, his screams were nothing to it. It did its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his feelings, had simply no existence at all; it cut his throat and watched him gasp out his life. ― Upton Sinclair, The Jungle It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. ― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked Delusions  of Terra-Forming and Mickey Mouse Grabbing Adults’ Attention So what do we do with these Titans of idiocy, with their billions and their algorithms, with their broken telescopes peering into the black hole of humanity? What about the 150,000 chemicals in human cells created by the industrialists, those synergistic variant effects we have zero knowledge about, which have helped push our American society into a chronically ill species of over 50 percent of a population cycled through Western (Un-)Medicine. Children with autism or on the spectrum — count that as possibly 30 percent of all births by 2040. Diabetes 1 and 2, more than 15 percent or more of the population by 2040. According to Dr. Winchester: This is a really important concept that is difficult to teach the public, and when I say the public, I include my clinical colleagues. Still, atrazine is not the only human hormone-altering chemical in the environment. Dr. Winchester tested nearly 20 different chemicals and all demonstrated epigenetic effects, for example, all of the chemicals reduced fertility, even in the 3rd generation. Still, why do 150,000,000 Americans have chronic diseases? Researchers believe that every adult disease extant is linked to epigenetic origins. If confirmed over time with additional research, the study is a blockbuster that goes to the heart of public health and attendant government regulations. According to Dr. Winchester: This is a huge thing that is going to change how we understand the origin of disease. But a big part of that is that it will change our interpretation of what chemicals are safe. In medicine I can’t give a drug to somebody unless it has gone through a huge amount of testing. But all these chemicals haven’t gone through anything like that. We’ve been experimented on for the last 70 years, and there’s not one study on multi-generational effects. Environmental Working Group tested more than a dozen brands of oat-based foods to give Americans information about dietary exposures that government regulators are keeping secret. In April, internal emails obtained by the nonprofit US Right to Know revealed that the Food and Drug Administration has been testing food for glyphosate for two years and has found “a fair amount,” but the FDA has not released the findings. Ahh, the melting planet, the water cycle’s disrupted, the entire mess of planetary re-shifting is on a collision course with Homo Sapiens. Everyday I get more and more notifications from friends and thinkers about the impending collapses, the impending peak this and peak that (Peak Everything). Globalization makes it impossible for modern societies to collapse in isolation, as did Easter Island and the Greenland Norse in the past. Any society in turmoil today, no matter how remote … can cause trouble for prosperous societies on other continents and is also subject to their influence (whether helpful or destabilizing). For the first time in history, we face the risk of a global decline. But we also are the first to enjoy the opportunity of learning quickly from developments in societies anywhere else in the world today, and from what has unfolded in societies at any time in the past. That’s why I wrote this book.” ― Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed Feudal Factories of Propaganda and Propagating .001 Percenters — Water, Man, Water We trust ourselves, far more than our ancestors did… The root of our predicament lies in the simple fact that, though we remain a flawed and unstable species, plagued now as in the past by a thousand weaknesses, we have insisted on both unlimited freedom and unlimited power. It would now seem clear that, if we want to stop the devastation of the earth, the growing threats to our food, water, air, and fellow creatures, we must find some way to limit both. ― Donald Worster, Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West We are seeing this circling of the billionaires’ wagons (vultures circling the 7.8 billion marks, us), this Bezos and Musk lust for space, for some planetary gated-armed-Utopian community. These fellows and dames are something else, and the conjurers of news unfit to consume fall over them, recording and publishing story after story about their wisdom and foresight and shamanistic ways of predicting the future. Remember George W. Bush and his big ranch buy in Paraguay? That was 12 years ago, readers, yet, back to the future, with news (sic) report after news report (sic) keeps tracking the next billionaire economic ejaculation. W, and we thought he was only painting pets! The Chaco is a semiarid, sparsely populated area known — to the extent that it’s known at all — for its abundant wildlife, rapid deforestation, nothing in particular… and what lies beneath it… Our Real Wealth Trader and Outstanding Investments contributor Jody Chudley thinks he knows the true gen about the Bush land grab. Jody says he has a “secret” about the Bushes. And he adds, “It has to do with an investment idea that’s hardly on anyone’s radar.” The real reason Jody thinks Bush 43 and family snapped up nearly 300,000 acres in those semiarid, sparsely populated wastes of Paraguay? Water. That’s right, blue gold. Bush bought the rights to a veritable ocean of fresh, clear-as-glass, Grade A water. His land rests atop one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world: Acuifero Guarani, by name. According to Jody, “Acuifero Guarani covers roughly 460,000 square miles under parts of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. It is estimated to contain about 8,900 cubic miles of water.” If you can’t quite imagine 8,900 miles of water, picture a pool nearly three times the size of California. That should give you a decent idea. A fair amount when you consider that 98% of this planet’s water is salt water. Of the other 2%, almost 87% of it is trapped within glaciers, hence inaccessible. Jody’s “trusty calculator” informs him that only 0.25% of the water on this cosmic ball is fresh (underground, or in rivers and lakes). Just a drop in the figurative bucket… Now, we knew this sort of stuff was going on with the elites, who look at us all as easy marks, broken money bags, the fat cows or broken pigs of their global stockades. What’s happened is this trickle-down lust-love-longing for these people who get plastered in the headlines as being grand and philanthropists, deserving of every cent and every billion made on the back of people, earth, cultures. Their trans-capital and monopolies  and viral presence like Google, Facebook, Walmart, and on and on sucks the revolution out of revolutionary, since we are now shackled to their ways of doing things. The goal of the capitalists is to harmonize their theft with our survival, whatever it takes to put five to a studio apartment (of course, sneaking the other four into the room in the dead of night), whatever it takes to just float through a gridlocked urban and suburban world. So, from Bush and Paraguay, to this Gawker Killer Thiel, we have enough evidence of their feudal ways, their slippery snake eyes methods of shitting on we underlings: Here is Robert Hunziker: Peter Thiel, the PayPal billionaire and renowned super-super-super libertarian and unapologetic Trumpster love-fester achieved New Zealand citizenship in only 12 days and bought not only his citizenship but a $13.8 M estate in Wanaka, a lakeside community. According to a phone interview with the former PM of New Zealand John Key, “If you’re the sort of person that says I’m going to have an alternative plan when Armageddon strikes, then you would pick the farthest location and the safest environment – and that equals New Zealand if you Google it… It’s known as the last bus stop on the planet before you hit Antarctica. I’ve had a lot of people say to me that they would like to own a property in New Zealand if the world goes to hell in a hand-basket. Hell in a hand-basket, from the former prime minister of New Zealand — 1935 Book, quote: If the average white New Zealander takes the Maori seriously as a human being, he is usually rather too ready to blame him for characteristics which more careful study will show not to be inherent at all but actually the result of the coming of the Europeans themselves, the extensive destruction of Maori life and the virtual dispossession of the Maori people. Little attempt is commonly made to understand the causes which produced, for a time at any rate (for they are passing) those Maori characteristics which have become almost proverbial amongst us. To put it frankly, we blame the Maori for becoming what we have made him. It is interesting to realise that similar circumstances of the contact of peoples have occurred before, and in view of the people referred to there is one instance which it seems particularly fitting that we should bear in mind. The instance comes down to us from the days when another great Empire, an ancient one, was civilizing native peoples. There is on record a letter from a wealthy Roman landowner to his agent in Britain telling him to ship no more British slaves “as they are so lazy and cannot be trusted to work.” Similar causes produce similar effects; we should be less ready with hasty judgment and hasty blame. There is a widespread belief, and it is one certainly cherished by the average white New Zealander, that no native people have ever been so fairly treated by Europeans as have the Maori people. As a matter of fact, if it is fully and frankly told, the story of the contact of Europeans with native peoples is much the same everywhere. What we have are so many varieties of what a leading anthropologist has recently termed “the tragic mess which invariably results from the impact of white upon aboriginal culture.” It is true that the Maori people have survived, but this, on careful analysis, proves to be very largely due to their own qualities and their own efforts rather than to any specially favourable mode of treatment. If we are honest there is little ground for pakeha self-congratulation. Ahh, the evidence of climate change (global warming–hot planet) was there in 1896 researched, formulated and discoursed by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius (and then later, amateur G. S. Callendar ramified the greenhouse effect of burning fossil fuels, and then later, C. D. Keeling measured the rising CO2 levels tying that to the greenhouse hot house effect), but for which has been swept into confusion by those marketers and mad men. Imagine, average planetary temps going up from  2.5–11°F by 2100. Imagine that! The more civilizations evolve, the more energy dependent they become, so it’s possible that trillions of civilizations in the great continuum of space evolved, rose, fell and disappeared. If you develop an industrial civilization like ours, the route is going to be the same. You’re going to have a hard time not triggering climate change. For a civilization to destroy itself through nuclear war, it has to have certain emotional characteristics. You can imagine certain civilizations saying, ‘I’m not building those [nuclear weapons]. Those are crazy.’ But climate change, you can’t get away from. If you build a civilization, you’re using huge amounts of energy. The energy feeds back on the planet, and you’re going to push yourself into a kind of Anthropocene. It’s probably universal. —  Adam Frank, astrophysicist Interlude, Interglacial Periods, Working for the Homeless — Flailing at Windmills   Yeah, these big ideas I broach with homeless veterans and their attendant family members, and while the Gates-Kochs-Zuckerbergs-Bloombergs-Adelsons-et al have zero concern about us, the proles, the  detritus of their Capital, I believe working to change one life at a time — even if it’s a life riddled with evictions, felonies, relapses, epigenetic familial hell, PTSD, trauma, spiritlessness, physical decay — has meaning since in that process I have incredible interchanges with people who sort of want the same thing — paradigm shifts and de-industrialization and ecosocialism a la Marx 3.0. I try to find peace in writing, even these polemics at DV or LA Progressive; and in my own world of fiction-poetry-creative nonfiction, the windmills abound because of a rarefied culture of the M-F-A (masters in fine arts) elite — those gatekeepers of the small literary kind, or even the National Book Award kind. This country is not big on real outliers in anything tied to the arts, and I am one of those round pegs looking to splinter the quintessential square hole. Short story collection? Who the hell would read that? Well, try out a project of mine to get the stories —  thematically (sort of) threaded (sort of) to the “Vietnam experience” — as a hard copy from a small press, Cirque. You can read one of the stories, “Bloody Sheets,” here, starting on page 115. The collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam, is a gathering of fiction, much of which has been published in literary journals. I have succumbed to a Go Fund Me “deal” to help balance-offset the costs of printing a book on paper with ink. I have no idea if a Go Fund Me will even take off. The first and only donation is from filmmaker Brian Lindstrom. Amazing, a struggling documentarian throwing in FIRST. But we are in a new normal of shitting on writers, expecting us to have our day and then our night jobs and then write-write-write for free. That is the question, really, who wants to spend their time reading short stories, outside the very narrow readership of Masters of Fine Arts aficionados who in many regards can be pedantic and puffery artists? Vietnam, no less, in a time of Tim Burns rotting the foundation of the war we committed, or the Obama administration’s scrubbing of the war in his effort to commemorate it (Obama gives killer Kissinger awards). Vietnam. One of my short journalist pieces for an old weekly I worked for in Spokane. How many died in Vietnam and Indochina? 3.8 million? Oh, that Nobel Cause (War) myth I run into daily at a homeless veterans shelter, that is was winnable and worthy. Killing farmers, man, in their rice paddies! Whew, only a Zionist could write that script. Read my short story collection for a different way to frame creativity and that time period, that narrative framing, that time in history that has defined and redefined the ugly wars of today. I am going to give this a shot in a time of blatant skepticism and group-think/act/do. Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam. Be part of the creative impetus. The energy. The publication of a short story collection. With that “ask” of the reader who then gives will receive another book of mine, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber. In my view [Dan Kovalik], this Noble Cause myth may be the most powerful and enduring propaganda trick ever perpetrated. And, it works so well because the audience for the trick — the U.S. people — are such willing and eager participants in the charade. To explain the power of the Noble Cause myth, Marciano quotes from Harold Pinter’s 2005 Nobel Prize lecture.  I set forth a larger quote from the lecture than appears in the book because it is so profound: The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven. Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. John Steppling, my fellow writer who studies intersections of culture-mimesis-art-politics (My review of his book,  Aesthetic Resistence and Dis-interest. That Which Will Not Allow Itself to be Said, here at DV) discusses the MFA phenomenon, a true watering down and controlled form of check and balances fiction: So, the fact that The Rockefeller Foundation underwrote (and still underwrites) a good many MFA programs (and not just in literature, but in theatre and fine arts) is both relevant, and not. Or maybe a better way to address this is see The Rockefeller Foundation as symptom. I received a Rockefeller fellowship, which I hadn’t applied for. But, the very fact that creative writing programs boomed after WW2, and permeated the academic landscape is without question linked to the patronage of institutions like The Rockefeller Foundation (and the MacArthur Foundation, and…). And to deny that the tacit influence of these institutions is idiotic. Now, it’s also true that what John Crowe Ransom and Stegner and Burrows preached is correct. Or it’s correct up to a point. It is revealing that Melville was derided, because Melville wrote a lot of ideas, and additionally observed the ways those ideas and that knowledge existed in the world. But it is equally true that you do not observe those harpoons so closely, or closely in a particular way, that all you get is a harpoon description. And a so described harpoon that never participates in riots or social unrest, and whose production is unexamined and the harpoon company that distributes it is left blank…the better to describe the fluted morning dew that bifurcates my tabby cat’s shadow on the harpoon handle, and etc etc etc is only a individual’s sensory observation. The harpoon must be known, not just observed. The real point here is that what Iowa started, and many other University programs followed, was to narrow down the definition of “fiction”. Dante would not be considered fiction today. While there is a point in demanding a concrete description, and not a generality, the exclusive focus on the concrete meant that ideas were being eliminated in fiction. The world is not abstract… but that includes History and politics and tensions of daily life. Those offices in New York, or those bad marriages, are not separate from the Chinese Revolution, or U.S. Imperialism, or the blockade of Cuba or the present two million men and women in prison in the United States. ‘Greatness’, whatever that means, and I have no problem with that word, or the ideas behind it, is in discovering both what that connection is, and ..and this is important I believe…how our own personal emotional and psychic formation, and development are related to both Mao and our failed marriages (or, even the successful ones). The emphasis on observation, on brute description, however eclipsed ideas as a subject for fiction. You may not sit down to write ideas, per se, but you certainly have an idea of what a harpoon is. You have to know certain things, and, in fact, the best writing is that which tells you what you don’t know, not describes nicely what you already do know. And there is a tendency in young writers to generalize. So on the one hand it’s natural to emphasize the concrete, but the result, perhaps intentional, or partly so (given the Rockefeller project) was the elimination of ideas in prose, and the narrowing of the definition of what constituted “fiction” http://clubof.info/

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